Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32544312

Points: 8

# Comments: 3

I want to push back on calling Uber's methods to avoiding regulations to be unethical, separately from discussing the wages. When they were starting, taxis had regulatory capture with their de facto monopoly. Lobbying over many decades prevented fair and healthy competition for out-of-date reasoning (like medallions and landmark tests). To break this corruption required illegal (and gray area) techniques, but I don't think it's unethical to destroy something that is unethical itself. Not all positive change can happen from following all the laws. Had they gotten shut down in the beginning, I think that would have been a major societal negative, and other ride-share companies coming on their coattails would not have happened.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32487755

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32296094

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32273554

Points: 5

# Comments: 0

Anything "disruptive" would be immediately shut down and threatened from the dominant industry. Anti-societal violence in video games were under constant protest (like the original Grand Theft Auto, or Mortal Kombat), and don't even think about trying to start a business like Uber or Spotify.

New file formats could be immediately crushed by IP concerns. Even web pages posting content about circumventing current systems or linking to sites like that were targeted. If you weren't a big player, you didn't have any way to accept money (besides asking people to mail you checks).

While tech is seen as too powerful now, I think it's at least nice that we no longer have the anxiety that plagued any idea or project in the past. You don't have to worry about going to jail for programming crypto code, or be unable to find a hosting provider for your website that shows scraped public data.

I main difference here is usability. The current process is going into an app, finding+choosing the website from a list, tapping that website, manually copying from one screen to another, checking that you copied the digits correctly, then confirming. This is stressful and takes about a minute. A process where you just confirm a dialog, or use your fingerprint takes 2 seconds, and doesn't require the mental effort of memorizing and writing out 6 digits. If the people working on security can't see the enormous difference between the two workflows, then this is hopeless.

It's the same issue that plagues the security-minded people who think regular users will go around copying and storing each others' PGP keys.

Even better, use a thumbprint to authorize on the phone, to add one more layer of security. Then you hit the trifecta of verifying 1) something you know (the password entered on the website), 2) something you own (your phone), and 3) something about you (your fingerprint).

Sure the "efficiency" is improving but it's mainly tricks for turning it on/off at better times. I know there are some U-shaped ones now, but it's just a slightly different styling.

Edit: two commenters pointed out examples of air conditioners which are 77 lbs and 56 lbs. As a comparison, the OSHA recommended lifting weight is 50 lbs. I would love to see someone apply Apple's obsession with thinner, lighter, "revolutionary new design" to ACs.

Why are you interested in the percentage of foreign born PhD students? You realize that a lot of Americans are "foreign born". It seems like an archaic way of thinking about things.

"International student" should indeed exclude those who are permanent residents. Which means they have been living here permanently before becoming a student, likely grew up in America, or just waiting for the citizenship, etc. "International student" means someone who moved here to study.

I'm assuming good intentions, but want to make sure we're not intentionally trying to gatekeep what it means to be an American.

1) you're right that ASCII was English only, but now utf-8 is the defacto standard, backwards compatible with ASCII, and good for every language. Use that, no BOM needed and the BOM is discouraged by the standard anyway.

2) dates can be YYYY-MM-DD as per the ISO standard. Also they're sortable as a string too as a nice side effect.

All good?

"From what I understand (second-hand info), personality not productivity drove this decision. He ran an unhappy lab, and he was arrogant even for MIT. I can definitely see that in the way he presents himself, so I can give credence to that explanation. Don’t know personally so he could be a great guy and I’m wrong, but there are valid reasons someone can be denied tenure even with research that goes above and beyond, and it isn’t hard to imagine that being the case here."

https://www.reddit.com/r/Professors/comments/sv34ez/tenure_d...

Wait, isn't that just another way of saying that she sold Flicker to SmugMug? If so, she sounds very blamable.